This seemed like a good time to post this item from the Humor List.
Michael Forster

THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about
how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).

2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list,
and brainstorm recruitment strategies).

3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads
develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up)

4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots
of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other
experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop;
people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with
generosity and patience; everyone---newbie and expert alike---feels
comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and
sharing opinions)

5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically;
not every thread is fascinating to every
reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person
1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't
limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person
1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more
bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used
for the threads themselves; everyone gets
annoyed)

6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who
asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies
are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues;
all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to
a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating
each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list)

OR

6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants
stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly
every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete'
key, but the list lives contentedly ever after)